# How do you get ants to fight each other to the death? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 12, 2005, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935 "2005-04-12T05:29:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Marc\_Xenos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Marc\_Xenos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marc_Xenos)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/61 "2011-05-21T17:05:55Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I am very sympathetic to animals and anti animal cruelty and I think this whole thread is hilarious. They’re just ants. I don’t like animal pit fighting either but they didn’t even fight! I, personally, disapprove of animal cruelty for entertainment, but my personal opinion really means little in the great scheme of things. I mean, as a person, imagine yourself being struck and killed by a car. Accidents happen. Flat tire, car goes out of control, a person is killed. Nothing malicious, just an act of fate. OR it might be someone playing a live version of GTA, getting his kicks out of running over people for the enjoyment of killing living people. Now, as a person, in your last moments on this earth, does it really matter the REASON why you’re dying? Does it make any difference to you that someone has killed you for pleasure as opposed to killing you by accident? As I said, I’m against animal cruelty as a personal belief, and I live my life to that extent. Which is all well and good for MY life. But expecting others to live THEIR lives according to MY principles is total arrogance (not to mention utterly futile). And bragging about my “principles” is just an attempt to appear somehow superior to others. A position obviously not yet attained by the sheer need to brag about it and insist that others adopt my viewpoint. Then again, maybe I really don’t have a position against animal cruelty since I do hunt, and enjoy placing a good shot to bring an animal down. To each his own. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/62 "2011-05-21T17:38:02Z")
[Japanese bug fights…](http://www.japanesebugfights.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Jon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bb73d2/32.png) [@Evil\_Jon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Jon)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/63 "2011-05-21T21:00:52Z")
Pull off their antennae. You can even get ants from the same colony to fight each other that way. However they tend to not move around much. ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/64 "2011-05-21T22:09:28Z")
The answer is: Science! [ > [@](#): > > Researchers then coated individual worker ants from the same colony with the purified substance. The researchers matched each of the chemically disguised ants with 10 untreated ants, one by one for five minutes each, in a petri dish. > > “The ‘enemy’ chemicals generated significantly greater instances of flared mandibles, biting and other attacking behavior than did the control chemicals,” said study co-lead author Ellen van Wilgenburg, a post-doctoral researcher in Tsutsui’s lab at UC Berkeley. “We also saw higher levels of aggression when we increased the concentration of the chemicals and when we combined some of the chemicals together.” ]([10.27.2009 - When ants attack: Researchers recreate chemicals that trigger aggression in Argentine ants](http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/27_ants.shtml)) ---
**Author:** ![alindallas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@alindallas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alindallas)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/65 "2011-05-23T01:41:12Z")
No penalties. No time limit. (Rollerball) ---
**Author:** ![leandroc76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bb73d2/32.png) [@leandroc76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leandroc76)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/66 "2011-05-23T14:17:57Z")
> [@Monstre](#): > > The first thing you lose is your mandibles, and I’ll tell you why… …and then my antennae I suppose, get on with it… ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/67 "2011-05-26T20:01:59Z")
[Edmund Gwenn] Shoot the antenna! Shoot the antenna! [/Edmund Gwenn] ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/68 "2011-05-26T23:28:49Z")
> [@leandroc76](#): > > …and then my antennae I suppose, get on with it… “Wrong. Your antennae you keep and I’ll tell you why. So that every shriek of every ladybug at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every grasshopper that weeps at your approach, every mosquito who cries out, “Dear God! What is that thing,” will echo in your perfect antennae. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.” “You do realize that antennae don’t sense sound? They’re olfactory organs.” “Really? No shit?” “Yup.” “Okay, how about…You killed my father. Prepare to die!” “Your father? We’re ants. We’re a matriarchal society with a single mother.” “Alright…give me a minute…maybe a Monty Python line…” ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/69 "2011-05-27T14:59:51Z")
> [@Creaky](#): > > How about humming that Captain Kirk Fight Music from when he had to fight Mr. Spock, I think, with nets and those trident thingies? Ahn-woons and lirpas. Neither one of them resembled a net or a trident. ---
**Author:** ![Martiju](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@Martiju](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martiju)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/70 "2011-05-27T16:02:00Z")
> [@Marc\_Xenos](#): > > Now, as a person, in your last moments on this earth, does it really matter the REASON why you’re dying? Does it make any difference to you that someone has killed you for pleasure as opposed to killing you by accident? It doesn’t make any difference to ‘you’, because ‘you’ are dead. For the rest of society though, it’s more reassuring to be able to put death down to an accident, or a necessity, rather than somebody else’s boredom. The former is bad luck or fate - the latter is, at best, sociopathic. ---
**Author:** ![Marc\_Xenos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Marc\_Xenos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marc_Xenos)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/71 "2011-05-27T23:47:29Z")
> [@Martiju](#): > > It doesn’t make any difference to ‘you’, because ‘you’ are dead. For the rest of society though, it’s more reassuring to be able to put death down to an accident, or a necessity, rather than somebody else’s boredom. The former is bad luck or fate - the latter is, at best, sociopathic. Okay, so I’m still alive, but it’s my wife or kids that died. As someone who is still alive, who’s still part of society, does it really matter to me that she or they died as a result of an accident or by someone’s boredom? Dead is still dead. I’m not going to go skipping merrily through the rest of my life, thinking gee, it’s a really good thing they only died by accident. The last guy who uttered that worthless phrase at my mother’s funeral, “At least she’s in a better place, now,” needed surgery to repair what was left of his teeth. ---
**Author:** ![blueskiesfrompain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@blueskiesfrompain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blueskiesfrompain)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2011, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/72 "2011-05-28T12:07:33Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > I managed to capture a black ant and a red ant, with the hopes I would have my own little miniature thunderdome. However I was greatly disappointed to find that the ants were more interested in finding their way out than killing each other ☹ Anybody remember The Hellstrom Chronicle from the early 70’s? A documentary sci-fi thingy that concluded bugs would take over the world. Maybe the black and red ant colonies have called a truce as the first step in their grand strategy. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Khristy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@Khristy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khristy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2011, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/73 "2011-05-30T09:32:01Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > Here’s a technique I’ve had success with: > Wait till the ants look away from each other and then say, “Hey, ya queen’s seminal receptacle is in her mouth!” This works best if you use a little ant-like voice. You, my Friend, win this thread. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![navienavnav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7feea3/32.png) [@navienavnav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/navienavnav)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935/74 "2013-10-01T20:47:40Z")
Damn, why was this abandoned? I demand MOAR! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-ants-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death/298935.md?page=3)